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Referrals are one of the best ways to get new customers fast. Existing and new customers who love your business are excited to share it with the people they love.

An integrated digital marketing strategy can take your referrals to the next level for uncharted growth. By integrated, we mean optimizing and coordinating across platforms (like ads, social media, email marketing, and blog) for greater success across the board.

Here are 3 tactics you can use to generate more referrals for your business:

1. Consistent and on-brand referral message, creative, and incentive.

Let’s say you’re promoting a referral incentive, like giving someone a $25 gift card for each of their referrals who signs up or buys. When promoting, be sure to use the same image, message, and offer on every channel—and do use every channel.

It might seem like overkill to show the same thing on an ads, organic social media, and email, but repetition strengthens memory and keeps the promotion top of mind, ensuring that interested customers do take that next step to refer a friend.

Data from our marketing experience has shown that this approach leads to greater success across the board. Businesses and brands promoting a referral consistently across channels like social media and email get better results on each of those platforms than if they just used one or the other.

2. Make it easy for current customers to share your business with their family and friends.

What’s your current referral process? If a customer wants to refer a friend, do they have to tell you in the store? Fill out a form? Call in?

We build referral lead-capture pages into our digital marketing program. These pages can be linked to from ads, emails, social media posts, your website, and more. When you prompt a customer to help spread the word about your business, all they have to do is push a button, enter a few names and email addresses in a matter of seconds, and they’re all set.

The easier you make it, the less excuses your customers will make to procrastinate.

3. Consistently respond and engage with online comments and reviews.

No marketing platform is isolated—and new potential customers will investigate your brand across most if not all of those platforms. Before giving your business a chance, the first thing a referred customer will do is look you up on platforms like Yelp and Google and check out your social media pages.

Don’t let any comment or review, positive or negative, go unanswered. Show referrals that your business is listening, involved, friendly, and engaged. Your online reputation matters.

These are just 3 things to keep in mind for your next referral promotion—but our ideas don’t end here. In a webinar we recently hosted for one of our fitness franchise clients, we shared referral marketing strategies and demos specifically designed for their brand.

If you’re interested in exploring additional ways to promote referral marketing for your brand or business to drive growth, we’d love to hear from you.

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